History Main / MarkedBullet

* ''LethalWeapon'': Not physically marked, but Riggs tells his new partner Murtaugh that he has a special bullet picked out in case he ever decides to kill himself (which he thinks about every day). At the end of the film, [[spoiler: he gives Murtaugh the bullet as a symbol that he's come to terms with his inner demons and no longer suicidal]]. The bullet is stated to be a hollow-point, to minimise the odds of botching the job [[hottip:*:but it looks like a full metal jacket round]].

* ''{{Pirates of the Caribbean}}'': While not technically a marked bullet, the gun that Jack Sparrow carries to kill Barbossa with qualifies as a variation on this, as it still contains the bullet Barbossa left him to kill himself with. Ever since Barbossa led the mutiny that removed Jack as Captain, Jack refused to use that particular gun and bullet for any purpose other than killing Barbossa.

* While not technically a marked bullet, the gun that Jack Sparrow carries in ''{{Pirates of the Caribbean}}'' to kill Barbossa with qualifies as a variation on this, as it still contains the bullet Barbossa left him to kill himself with. Ever since Barbossa led the mutiny that removed Jack as Captain, Jack refused to use that particular gun and bullet for any purpose other than killing Barbossa.

* In O'Brien's massive Aubrey-Maturin series, reference is made to a Royal Navy tradition of the period to mark cannon balls POSTPAID. Why? Because stopping the Royal Mail was a capital offense.

* Archaeologists have found ancient Greek sling shots with "TakeThat" written on them (in [[EternalEnglish Greek]], of course).

* In the ''SeptimusHeap'' series, there is a magical significance to a named bullet, and sooner or later it will always find its target. [[spoiler: The catch, as one assassin finds out, is that this doesn't necessarily mean the target will be shot with it.]]
** The way the bullet is named is important too. [[spoiler: If the bullet was named 'I.P.', nothing stops it from killing Iona Pot (aka Alice Nettles) instead of the Infant Princess]]

* During "AgeOfApocalypse" in ''[[Comicbook/{{Excalibur}} X-Calibre]]'', Nightcrawler marked the bullets for his gun with X's (hence the name of the series).

* ''The Replacement Killers'': In this HeroicBloodshed film, Chow Yun-Fat's character uses a bullet that has a Chinese dragon symbol on its shell casing to kill one of the major bad guys.
** Actually, the symbol was the Chinese/Japanese character for 'Death'.
** Specifically, he sets one down in front of the target as a way to say "Hi. I'm here to shoot you now." Seems sort of counterproductive for a hitman to telegraph his intentions like that, [[RuleOfCool but...]]
* In the trailer for ''{{WANTED}}'', Angelina Jolie is shown firing a bullet that says "Good Bye" written on it.
** Which was more a message to Wesley than to the ones that it hit.
** In fact, in the same film, there is an invoked aversion to the trope, with a character whose bullets had a [[AbnormalAmmo break-away outer casing]] to prevent the gun from leaving any identifying marks at all on them. When one of these bullets fails to seperate from the casing ([[AlternateCharacterInterpretation whether or not on purpose is left up to the viewer to decide]]) it ends up playing the trope straight by making the bullet even ''easier'' to trace than a normal one would be.
* In the ''ResidentEvil'' film, one of the gun shells that are falling in slow motion says "Umbrella Corp".
** In the second film the Umbrella logo was seen on the back of the slug itself. Both were probably to show just how big and diverse of a company Umbrella was.

* Not physically marked, but Riggs in ''LethalWeapon'' at one point tells his new partner Murtaugh that he has a special bullet picked out in case he ever decides to kill himself (which he thinks about every day). At the end of the film, [[spoiler: he gives Murtaugh the bullet as a symbol that he's come to terms with his inner demons and no longer suicidal]].
** Interestingly, the bullet is a hollow-point bullet, and Riggs makes a big deal of this fact. Hollow-point bullets are standard issue to police forces.
*** The big deal is that he has carefully selected the type of bullet he will use, to minimise the odds of botching the job, rather than which type.
*** Also interesting is that dispite Riggs firmly stating the round is a Hollow-point, when the round is actually shown it is seen to be a standard full metal jacket round.

* The SilverBullet was, itself, the mark and signature of ''TheLoneRanger'', who not only used them to [[ImprobableAimingSkills magically aid his marksmanship]] but would leave one, in cartridge, to indicate he had been about incognito.

* In ''{{Halo}} 3'', if you watch a saved film and freeze it, you can see the bullets in mid-air. On the back of each of them is the word [[spoiler: "Chief".]]
** A sillier version is that the shotgun shells in the first game, if you zoomed in, had hippos on them.
*** Strangely appropriate, because hippos can be some ''mean'' sons of bitches.
* The opening cutscene for ''Nocturne'' showed The Stranger carving crosses into the tips of his bullets, the practical reason no doubt being that this '''would''' make a difference against some of the monsters he hunts.
* UnrealTournament:

* The trailer for ''Brink'' gives us a grenade with [[/folder]]

[[folder: jah lick them with thunder ]]
.

[[folder: Webcomics ]]

* [[http://ravensdojo.com/?p=1162 This]] strip in RavensDojo.

[[/folder]]

* In the fourth season of ''ReBoot'', Matrix has one with Daemon's name on it. [[spoiler:Somewhat nicely subverted, though; Daemon just stops the bullet with a wave of her hand]].
* Mainframe Entertainment was quite fond of this trope. In ''BeastWars'', Scorponok had missiles with the Maximals' logo painted on.

* In Afghanistan a sailor got in trouble for writing "Hijack this, Fags!" on a bomb to be dropped. The sailor got in trouble because an AP photographer was standing there.
** The lesson being, I suppose, "If you're going to be funny, check for the media first, because they apparently don't have a sense of humor."
*** Writing a message on the bombs was actually not what got the guy in trouble, it was [[OnceAcceptableTargets the perjorative phrase for homosexuals.]]
** This was very common in World War II. In one of the more famous examples, Jimmy Doolittle [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Doolittle_LtCol_i02457.jpg put a Japanese medal]] on one of the bombs that would be dropped in his famous raid.
*** It wasn't just Doolittle. Many American soldiers had received medals from the Japanese government for their service in WWI, and after Pearl the majority sent those medals to the Air Force with the instructions "return to sender."
** And this was echoed in the film ''[[DrStrangelove Dr. Strangelove]]''; the bombs in the bomb bay of Maj. T.J. "King" Kong's B-52 had "Hi There!" ([[spoiler:this is the one Kong [[RidingTheBomb rode to his death on]]]]) and "Dear John" scrawled on them.
** Joe Strummer of The Clash ''wept'' when he learned the phrase "Rock the Casbah" was being written on bombs in the first Gulf War.

** Or more efficient, as a bullet with a cross carved into is is what we today know as a dum-dum. Archaeology has shown that this was a pretty common practice during the ThirtyYearsWar.
*** Except that's a bullet, not a musket ball. A dum-dum is basically a primitive hollow-point, and a musket ball isn't likely to remain with the cross forward during flight.

[[AC:ComicBooks]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* In the HeroicBloodshed film ''TheReplacementKillers'', Chow Yun-Fat's character uses a bullet that has a Chinese dragon symbol on its shell casing to kill one of the major bad guys.

* In ''TheMessenger: The Story of Joan of Arc'', Gilles de Rais (Vincent Cassel) writes "Hello" on a cannonball that is shot into an English fort.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

* An episode of ''{{CSI}}'' revolves around the murder of a man suffering from Hypertrichosis (aka "Werewolf syndrome"), a condition that causes excessive body hair. To make matters even more bizarre, the guy was shot with a ''silver bullet''. It turns out the guy wasn't murdered due to being confused with a werewolf but because he was engaged to the killer's sister who feared their children would inherit the condition. Why did the guy go through all the trouble of forging a silver bullet with the added risk of the police finding him as it indeed happened? "Seemed appropriate."
* ''{{Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans}}''. Hawkeye is nearly executed when one of his own marked bullets is fired at a British officer he had an ongoing rivalry with. It turns out to have been stolen before the battle by another colonist.

[[AC:{{Music}}]]

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

* The trailer for ''Brink'' gives us a grenade with [[AC:jah lick them with thunder]].

[[AC:Webcomics]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

[[AC:RealLife]]

[[{{Wanted}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wanted-goodbye-bullet_6517.jpg]]
[[caption-width:343:If you think this is [[BizarreAndImprobableBallistics crazy]], you should see [[CoolGuns the gun]].]]

->It's not the one with your name on it; it's the one addressed "to whom it may concern" you've got to think about.
->-- [[http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-war.html Murphy's Laws of War]]

Favored by TheGunslinger, And is usually used with GunFu, and GunKata . Also used with BulletTime.

** Flak shells have a smily face painted on the front.

** In UT2003/4, it has ''Swallow This'' written instead.

* The SilverBullet was the signature of the

* The SilverBullet was, itself, the mark and signature of TheLoneRanger, who not only used them to [[ImprobableAimingSkills magically aid his marksmanship]] but would leave one, in cartridge, to indicate he had been about incognito.

[[AC:{{Anime}}]]
* In ''OutlawStar'' the main character Gene Starwind finds a ultrarare superpowerful #9 shell that propels his foe into a starry alternate dimension void.

** The 2005 documentary ''Why We Fight'' had a man asking to have his son's name written on a bomb, since his son was killed in 9/11. He gets conflicted when he realizes that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

* {{Nickelback}}'s "Side Of A Bullet" mentions one of these.
** It's hard to tell. ThisTroper thinks they were just using the "bullet with your name on it" metaphor.

* This troper knows a guy in Iraq, who found his squadmate writing his name on a spare bullet. When asked why;
->"You know how we all have a bullet with our name on it?"
->"Yeah. So?"
->"So, if the bullet with my name on it is in ''my'' pocket, then I've got nothing to worry about."
->(Beat)
->"You're either the smartest guy here or the stupidest."
** Beaten to the punch by [[BlackAdder Baldrick]], of all people.

<<|ActionAdventureTropes|>>
<<|GunsAndGunplayTropes|>>

* In ''Literature/SomethingWickedThisWayComes'', [[spoiler: this is used to kill the witch, via Charles Halloway carving a "smile" on the bullet as she's weakened by positive emotions.]]

* While not technically a marked bullet, the gun that Jack Sparrow carries in ''{{Pirates of the Caribbean}}'' to kill Barbossa with qualifies as a variation on this, as it still contains the bullet Barbossa left him to kill himself with. Ever since Barbossa led the mutiny that removed Jack as Captain, Jack refused to use that particular gun and bullet for any purpose other than killing Barbossa. [[spoiler:Which he does, at the end of the first movie. Barbossa [[IGotBetter gets better]] at the end of the second, which ironically is a good thing for Jack.]]

* {{Nickelback}}'s "Side Of A Bullet" mentions one of these, OrSoIHeard.

->(Best)